North Charleston neighborhood invaded by sewage, again

2011-08-19T03:42:15Z2011-08-19T12:34:01Z

NORTH CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) -

Hardwood floors, new cabinets, and priceless objects passed down through generations are all victims of a sewage overflow in North Charleston on Thursday night. This isn't the first time homes in the Forest Hills sub-division have dealt with the sewage problem but Annette Gadsden says she's ready to make sure it's the last time.

"Our door is shut, our house is shut, and you can smell it outside," says Gadsden, a homeowner in the neighborhood.

For the second time in as many years, Gadsden and her family are displaced from their home. She says it's two times too many.

"This is actual sewer water coming up from three of our bathrooms," she said. "From the bathtub, from the toilets and it's overflowing and its not stoppable."

Gadsden returned home today to a smell and a sight that brought her back to 2009, the first time her home flooded with sewage.

"We were displaced for a year and we stayed in a hotel for a year," she said, walking through her home that now looks like it's been gutted. "This time we've lost even more."

Workers in toxic sewage suits pulled objects and floor boards out of the house that couldn't be salvaged as the Gadsden family watched their "priceless belongings" loaded into the back of a truck.

"The district ensured us that they were going to take care of the problem by putting in a backflow," she said. "Well the backflow doesn't work."

The sewer district Gadsden is referring to handles all sewage problems like hers in North Charleston since the city was founded in 1972 since it's infrastructure was already in place. Gadsden says the older her neighborhood is getting the more problems she's been seeing.

Right across the street her neighbor Debora Pittelkow has also experienced the pain.

"It's just been too much," says Pittelkow, who has lived through twice as many sewage floods as Gadsden. "It's raw sewage, it was black and it was coming up out of the shower."

The neighbors agree, worse than the sight and worse than the smell is the fact that the sewage floods continue to happen.

Because the issue is quickly becoming a legal battle, the North Charleston Sewer District said they couldn't comment on the situation.